We republish a lecture delivered by Prof. Felix Padel at the Centre for Culture and Development, Gujarat, on 19 December 2019.
Since the classic anthropological monographs analysed the social structure of India’s tribal communities during the 1920s-60s, the pace of change has been phenomenal. How to understand the transformations in a social structure that have taken place? With far deeper entry of the cash economy, widespread impacts of displacement and migration, and less self-sufficiency in terms of food as well as material culture, we need a model for understanding social change in terms of structural transformation.#CCDGujarat
Dr. Felix Padel is a London-born anthropologist-activist recently returned to the UK after 30 years of living in India, where he taught anthropology and was an activist for tribal and village community rights. A great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, his passion for nature and justice runs in the blood.